Seasons Greetings from New Normal Germany

So, I’m working on my year-end wrap-up piece, and preparing for my thoughtcrime trial in January, and getting my affairs squared away in case I get a visit from the New Normal Gestapo, which is currently raiding the homes of “criminals” like me here in Germany and other European countries, and … well, it’s all going a little more slowly than I had hoped.

I had planned to get my traditional “Year of Something” essay out before Christmas, and recuperate for the rest of the year, but that’s probably not going to happen now.

So I wanted to fill you in on a few developments here in New Normal Germany, and wish you a Merry Christmas, or a belated Happy Hanukkah, or whatever, and thank you again for your support this year.

I’m going to try to just dash this off without my usual obsessive attention to prosody and forgo any longwinded, pseudo-intellectual digressions about “reality,” and so on, because I figure you’re busy with your own holiday-season stuff. You may want to at least skim this post, though, because the increasingly totalitarian developments here in Europe might be “coming soon to a country near you.”

Ready? OK, here we go …

My attorney just sent me a link to a press release from Das Bundeskriminalamt (BKI), i.e., “The Federal Criminal Police Office of Germany,” detailing their participation in “The Third European Action Against Hate Crime Day.” The German police have been raiding the homes of persons suspected of "sedition," "the use of unconstitutional symbols" — e.g., using a swastika on a book cover, the crime I am facing trial for — and other so-called "hate crimes." Almost half of these raids stem from reports of "hate postings on the Internet."

That got my attention, because that is exactly how my criminal prosecution started.

I’ll report on this in greater detail in the new year, but, basically, a non-government organization established by the German government noticed my two thoughtcrime Tweets in 2022, and then (1) reported them to The Federal Criminal Police Office of Germany, which then initiated the criminal investigation that led to my prosecution, (2) instructed Twitter to censor the two Tweets, which Twitter instantly did, and (3) probably also reported the book cover to Amazon, which immediately banned the book in Germany, Austria, and The Netherlands.

Here’s the book and my alleged “thoughtcrime Tweets” … …

I haven’t had a visit from the European Action Against Hate Crime Gestapo yet, but I’ve already been investigated, and charged, and sentenced, in advance of my trial in January, so maybe they’re not coming, or are putting off raiding my home until “The Fourth European Action Against Hate Crime Day.”

All joking aside, if you think this kind of thing is only happening in Germany, or the European Union, think again. Here’s the UK …

Apparently, comparing governments and political figures to the Nazis is now a “hate crime”in the UK, as well as Germany, and who knows where else tomorrow, which, if you are as old as I am, seems rather strange …

Oh, and speaking of comparing things to the Nazis, that’s the other news I wanted to mention.

What happened was, an author named Masha Gessen, who writes for The New Yorker and “is non-binary and trans and uses they/them pronouns,” was scheduled to receive this prestigious literary award in Germany. But then Masha wrote an essay in which they compared Israel’s ongoing obliteration of Gaza to the Nazis’ liquidation of the Warsaw ghetto. The Heinrich Böll Foundation was outraged, and pulled out of the ceremony, which was rescheduled, and took place yesterday.

The Woke Intelligentsia went ballistic!

Yes, that’s right, the corporate journalists, the “cultural world” (and those aspiring thereto), and the rest of the Western Culture Industry, were “shocked, shocked,” that the New Normal totalitarianism they helped usher into being for the last three years (or just looked away while it happened) had now, suddenly, turned on them!

The majority of these people spent the last two and a half years demonizing anyone who refused to follow orders and parrot the official Covid propaganda as a “Covid-denying, conspiracy theorizing, far-right-extremist anti-vax idiot,” and, well, not to put too fine a point on it, they wanted “the Unvaccinated” sent to the camps. They cheered when our “disinformation” got censored. They applauded when the police banned our protests. They celebrated when we were segregated from society. They reported us to the authorities for “not social-distancing,” “being outdoors without permission,” “improperly wearing a mask,” and so on. Basically, they behaved like textbook fascists.

And now they’re shocked and horrified that the fascist tactics they normalized are being used against them and the people they like. I’m pretty sure there is a famous quote by a German pastor that might be apposite here.

Oh, and, if you need a laugh (or to get totally depressed), I used the opportunity to offer a free lesson on The Fascist Mentality in a Twitter thread (or, well, kind of a thread). Hanno Hauenstein is a journalist who writes for The Guardian, The Nation, and assorted German outlets. I don’t have a personal problem with Hanno. He was just convenient teaching material for my lesson. (I’m sorry, Hanno, that I made you feel “unsafe” by bringing my prosecution to your attention.)

That’s it for now … merry Christmas, happy holidays, and heartfelt thanks for your support throughout this very weird year! I’ll try to get that year-end wrap-up piece done and published before the Fat Lady sings … assuming the Thoughtpolice don’t come down the chimney and haul me off to some hate-criminal black site.